June 20, 2009

Iran: Saturday

"The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness."

Some of what the world will see as it watches can be seen here, at 2:37, under the accurate description: "Graphic video of a woman shot."

The Iranian police commander, in green uniform, walked up Komak Hospital Alley with arms raised and his small unit at his side. "I swear to God," he shouted at the protesters facing him, "I have children, I have a wife, I don't want to beat people. Please go home."

A man at my side threw a rock at him. The commander, unflinching, continued to plead. There were chants of "Join us! Join us!" The unit retreated toward Revolution Street, where vast crowds eddied back and forth confronted by baton-wielding Basij militia and black-clad riot police officers on motorbikes.

More anecdotal evidence of some police units wavering at the link. This leads to something I've been pondering and which hopefully someone smarter than me can answer: We know the disposition of the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia, but what of the regular army?

"We know the disposition of the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia, but what of the regular army?"

It's my utterly inexpert understanding that the Iranian Army has historically had little or no role in quelling domestic disturbances. Anyone with more knowledge should most certainly correct me if I'm wrong.

Whew. I get the feeling that things in Iran are truly balanced on a knife's edge. If the protesters don't back down, and right now it seems like they won't, it'll come down to what the police do. Right now my gut feeling, based on the little information we have, is that the police tried to intimidate the protesters with a show of force today. They, or at least some of them, don't want to mutiny but they don't want to fire on their fellow-citizens either (it looks like the Basiji have been behind most of the shootings). The confrontation today was an attempt to thread that needle between upholding order, and avoiding massive violence. I think the window for the authorities to put this down without massive violence is closing, if not already closed. So the question is: which way do the police jump?

I marched in Washington DC in a rally to support the Iranians struggling bravely for freedom in their country. It's a small thing I did compared to the giant thing they are doing, but let's stand up for them every way we can.

Our False Prophet appears to have no idea what a golden opportunity he's passing up… overthrow this evil regime without firing a single shot… get their Armageddon-inspired nuke program off the world stage… and free 30 million people all at one time. But the boy wonder is too stupid to see it… or somehow just doesn’t care?

And isn’t this what George W Bush told you was going to happen in the Middle East in the wake of Iraq's liberation?
Maybe that’s why Barack Obama has so little apparent interest in finishing the job in Iran… no matter how much it benefits the US and free world.

That, and the fact that he's already piled all his chips on legitimizing this vile regime- a democratic revolution at this point would be embarrassing.

That poor woman. I hesitated at watching the video, but I figured the more people who see her murder, the worse it is for the regime. The world *is* watching, and I hope, as always, that perpetrators of atrocities and war crimes are brought to justice.

isn’t this what George W Bush told you was going to happen in the Middle East in the wake of Iraq's liberation?

Bush predicted the Iranian regime would try to steal an election? Since when?

I don't know if anything has or has not changed in this specific regard since 2005. But Christopher S. Stewart reported less than a year ago in a reasonably convincing article that billions of dollars of U.S. products get sold in Iran via Dubai.

[...] Three days later, I’m in Tehran. Much of the time, the metropolis is shrouded in a steely haze produced by the horrendous and perpetual traffic jams that snarl the streets. One of my first stops is the Capital Computer Complex, in the affluent northern part of the city. The seven-floor mall is a warren of stores with wall-to-wall electronics, everything up-to-the-minute. Some of the products are from Japanese and Chinese manufacturers, but a lot of them are American: Dell laptops; Apple iPods, MacBooks, and iPhones; H.P. handhelds; Palm Pilots; Kodak cameras; Microsoft software; and Western Digital hard drives.

In other parts of the city are Black & Decker stores with signs in both English and Farsi and shops selling the same H.P. printers I saw in Dubai. There are pharmacies stocked with Head & Shoulders, the newest Gillette Fusion razor, and more flavors of Crest than I have seen in my neighborhood store in New York City.

[...]

Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office released “Iran Sanctions: Impact in Furthering U.S. Objectives Is Unclear and Should Be Reviewed,” a report that spotlighted transshipment in the U.A.E. as a “considerable problem.”

A day or two ago I heard or read* that Iranian generals have been 'taken into custody' by the Basiji because they made the mistake to say that they considered disobeying if ordered to massacre protesters. A few days earlier there were claims that thugs were imported from Syria to work with the Basiji against the protesters (people not speaking Farsi, so they would be unable to communicate with the people to be beaten down).

*Sorry, I can't remember whether it was on the net, on the radio or in the papers.

While it's obvious that we should wonder how the past week's events while affect perceptions of Iran in the USA, I was wondering if anyone here thought it would affect popular perceptions of the Israel-Palestine question, especially if another violent episode arises in the near future.

I don't mean in a geopolitical argument sort of way, I mean on a baser, emotional level. I don't want to provoke a big Israel-Palestine argument by seeming to insinuate an equivalence, but I think it has been very interesting to see a broad spectrum of popular opinion in the US, so far as one can gather from the blogs, rooting for Muslim protestors/rioters in the streets, throwing stones, facing an armed and anonymous militarised foe, chanting 'Allah akbar', girls in hajibs and even naqibs etc.

As I said, I am not asserting that 'Iranian reformists = Palestinians' or 'Ahmadinejad = Netanyahu' etc., but I think it is uncontroversial (if anything is on this topic) to note that on a purely visual basis, this is how Palestinian resistance is typically portrayed on television, doing much to account for a greater degree of sympathy for their cause in Europe, say, than in the US.

My point in short: I think many (not all) Americans have been conditioned not to empathise with people they see on TV holding banners in the Arabic script, chanting 'Allah akbar', wearing naqibs etc. Will this change now?

This thought was prompted by watching various television anchors repeatedly give a somewhat embarrassed explanation of why the protestors were chanting 'Allah akbar', the unspoken but fairly apparent subtext, I thought, being that coverage in the West has had an overwhelmingly pro-protestor slant in all sorts of subtle (and not so subtle) ways, and these same anchors are aware that they usual only show footage of people chanting 'Allah akbar' when they are detonating IED, carbombs etc.

I was wondering if anyone here thought it would affect popular perceptions of the Israel-Palestine question, especially if another violent episode arises in the near future.

I doubt it very much. Emotional responses are filtered through preconceived beliefs. The Palestinians are bad people because they terrorize the innocent peace loving Israelis who wouldn't hurt a fly after all. That's the lens through which most American TV viewers are going to see footage of Palestinian protests.

Now, I very rarely watch television, but is it at all common to show footage of Palestinian demonstrations on tv?

Are you seriously suggesting that if Obama adopted, say, McCain's tone and substance that the Iranian regime would have acted differently?

That's not how the world works. Never has.

Posted by: Eric Martin | June 21, 2009 at 09:35 AM

I don't know about that. If McCain was president*, he would have been taking the side of Moussavi's supporters at the first sign of any dispute. This would have made it easier for the current regime to paint Moussavi's supporters as tools of the Americans. Moussavi wouldn't back off his dissent just because of that - it's a presidency at stake - but he would have had to become vociferously anti-American to fight the impression of being a tool. And the current government might also have become more oppressive than they are now, if they felt genuinely threatened by McCain's statements.

All in all, McCain as president would be making things worse in Iran both for democracy and for our own interests, with the full-throated support of conservatives.

* At least, we know this based on his rhetoric as a Senator and as a presidential candidate. It's possible that presidency would have mellowed him out a bit and made him more responsible, but who knows.

But we'd still All Be Georgians Now, since Georgia is such a Grave Concern. More specifically, President McCain would have done his best to make Georgia (and Ukraine) members of NATO, and therefore unless Russia completely pulled out of Georgia and utterly backed down, we'd have been obligated to go to war with Russia.

Plus there'd have been Vice-President Palin's support, fwiw. (Note also Fred Kagan and Stuart Koehl's views at the time in The Weekly Standard, per my link.)

As for Syria, McCain at the very least was busy condemning Obama for not vocally supporting U.S. ground forces attacking Syria. McCain fully advocated U.S. ground forces attacking Syria. I suppose both sides could have avoided calling that "war."